Collaborative engravings of horned creatures

The friendship between Jean Tinguely (1925–1991) and Bernhard Luginbühl (1929–2011) was playful, exciting, and gave rise to many collaborative works. In 1988, the pair teamed up on the medium of printmaking, creating a bull, a rhino and an imaginary horned creature they called a ‘Dornier’.

By Lisa Oberli

The etching ‘Dornier‘ by Jean Tinguely and Bernhard Luginbühl from 1988. — Jean Tinguely and Bernhard Luginbühl:
‘Dornier’, 1988
© 2025, ProLitteris, Zurich* / Luginbühl family

From the 1970s, Bernhard Luginbühl worked on his life stories, filling extensive diaries with doodles and scribbles. His writing reflects his constantly-flowing train of thought, weaving everyday experiences, encounters and coincidences into a dense narrative strand. A constant figure in these stories is Jean Tinguely, his lifelong close friend. For example, on Wednesday 27 July 1988, Luginbühl writes: “on two of jeano’s copper engravings, my medium thickness burin leaves thicker marks.” ‘Jeano’ is the affectionate nickname he used to refer to Tinguely, whom he had known since 1956. A burin is an engraving tool used for the centuries-old intaglio printing technique of copper engraving. In the subsequent months in 1988 and 1989, more and more of Luginbühl’s diary entries refer to his printing collaboration with Tinguely. His accounts provide an insight into the creation of the three intaglio prints: ‘Stier avec Black Nuvola’, ‘Mechanisiertes Nashorn’ and ‘Dornier’ – and into the two friends’ process-driven and collaborative working style.

Etching together

Detail from the etching ‘Dornier’
© 2025, ProLitteris, Zurich* / Luginbühl family

The three works share a kind of blended authorship within the medium of printmaking. This is because Jean Tinguely and Bernhard Luginbühl both engraved the underlying printing plates. This involved the metal plates being passed back and forth between the artists for months and being reworked many times. The network of lines engraved onto the metal plate therefore grew steadily thicker, layer by layer. This can be seen in ‘Dornier‘. The copper etching was released for the first time in 1988 in a numbered print run of 20 copies, signed by Luginbühl and Tinguely, Over time, from the abstract lines emerged a reptilian, horned creature, with jagged spines and spikes. Are the clear, solid lines the work of Luginbühl and the fine, sketchy ones by Tinguely? In retrospect, it is difficult to distinguish the work of one artist from the other. The haphazard, instinctive interaction plays a key role in this collaborative work – not dissimilar to the surrealist exquisite corpse method, a collaborative drawing game using folded paper.

Contrasting styles

A double-page spread from the diary ‘Ein Datum ins Rote’ by Bernhard Luginbühl, 1988. — Bernhard Luginbühl, diary ‘Ein Datum ins Rote […] habe ich Glück 88’, 1988
© Luginbühl family

Luginbühl and Tinguely approached intaglio printing in very different ways. Bernhard Luginbühl had perfected the art of engraving and etching since the 1960s. He had mastered the technical tricks for using etching needles and burins during his many years of activity, and was able to employ them in a deliberate way. While the lines in his etchings may seem wild and unfettered, in his engravings they are often characterised by clear, elegant curved lines and precise hatching. On the other hand, Tinguely’s etching technique is more sketchy and more experimental in relation to the tools used. Luginbühl admired this in his diary entry from 2 October 1988: “[…] while telling the story, jeano scratches out two etchings at once. the plates are mistreated with any sharp utensils lying close to hand. not a bad idea, i thought, to engrave using a quill. using all manner of knives and blades he scraped, cut, scratched and poked, including with a simple carboard knife blade or even a nail.”

Printing process

A double-page spread from the diary ‘Das Buch ist so schön feiern die Steinmetze’ by Bernhard Luginbühl, 1988. — Bernhard Luginbühl, diary ‘Das Buch ist so schön feiern die Steinmetze’, 1988
© Luginbühl family

This sort of printing was often entrusted to the workshop of Raymond Mayer (*1943) in Lausanne. On 30 July 1988, Luginbühl wrote about the printing of the works ‘Stier avec Black Nuvola’ and ‘Mechanisiertes Nashorn‘: “have to go to lausanne to get the midget bull with the tinguely background printed. […] while i scratched away at the cobwebbed creature (rhino), raymond printed two rhinos that I engraved on the plate that jeano had left me”. Five days later, on 3 August 1988, Tinguely’s order to print an approved run of the bull was received: “[…] jeano received the etchings of the little copper bull today and called straight away. he said i should produce a print run for friends.” Instructions and requested changes were mostly communicated by phone, with Tinguely and Luginbühl in constant touch throughout the project. This is why six versions of the collaboratively etched bull survive today. The printing of the plates was repeated until the result was deemed (provisionally) acceptable.

Signing session

What’s it like to collaborate with artist friends? Exciting symbiosis? Mutual inspiration? Or an invitation to talk and share? In the case of Luginbühl and Tinguely, the artistic collaboration is usually associated with enjoying the finer things in life. Luginbühl’s diary reveals the circumstances in which the horned creature was signed on 5 February 1989: “ursi called about signing the little ‘DORNIER’ on the way back from lausanne . […] signing session in jean’s kitchen with the four of us – ursi, micheline, jeano and me – chatting as we drank a glass of white wine from the vaud; kitchen chatter you might call it.”

Iron sculptor Jean Tinguely (1925–1991) and Bernhard Luginbühl (1929–2011) had a decades-long friendship. They met in Bern in 1956 and became closer from 1970 onwards. Their friendship led to many joint exhibitions, collaborations, projects and campaigns. Luginbühl was at Tinguely’s side until the very end, when Tinguely died at the Berner Inselspital in 1991. In 1996, Luginbühl produced a filmed biography about his friend, and in 1997 he published his diary entries which he dedicated to Tinguely.